Crypto scams: the modern twist on old cons

Cryptocurrency itself is a legitimate technology with real uses. The surrounding ecosystem — social media, influencer culture, unregulated exchanges, anonymous transactions, lack of reversibility — is almost perfectly optimized for fraud. Every classic scam has a crypto version now, and new patterns emerge monthly.

Common patterns

• Pig butchering: long-con romance or friendship scams that eventually funnel you into a 'crypto trading platform' that shows fake gains before blocking withdrawals.
• Fake exchanges: sites that look like real exchanges, let you deposit, but won't let you withdraw. Stolen money, full stop.
• Rug pulls: a new coin's developers hype a token, watch people buy in, then drain the liquidity pool and disappear.
• Giveaway scams: 'Send 1 ETH to this address and get 2 ETH back.' Impersonations of Elon Musk, Vitalik Buterin, and others on social media. Nothing ever comes back.
• Fake wallets and fake apps: apps that look like legitimate crypto wallets, but silently forward your private keys to attackers.
• Address poisoning: attackers send tiny transactions from addresses that look almost identical to your usual contacts, hoping you'll copy-paste the wrong one later.

Safe practices

• Only use well-known, reputable exchanges for buying and selling.
• Use a hardware wallet for anything over a few hundred dollars of long-term holdings.
• Never click links from DMs or social media to 'claim' anything.
• Verify receiving addresses carefully every time you send.
• Assume every new coin is a scam until proven otherwise — it's the safer default.